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Nurse Sarah Barber is new Mayor

The new Mayor of Ipswich is Sarah Barber, a nurse at Ipswich Hospital.

Councillor Barber was born in 1972 in Aldershot into a military family – father Dennis served in the Grenadier Guards. She trained as a nurse and started work in Ipswich Hospital 16 years ago.

Her husband, Luke, will serve as consort.

Councillor Barber was elected Mayor at the Annual Council meeting in the Corn Exchange, succeeding Roger Fern, who now becomes Deputy Mayor.

The theme for her year in office is “This Mayor Can” and her official charities are Lighthouse Women’s Aid, the Ipswich Hospital Charity and FIND (Families in Need Ipswich).

The new Mayor thanked colleagues for electing her and paid tribute to her family for their “unstinting support for me throughout my life”. She added: “But there is one person who only a few people in this hall would have met who gave me the first demonstration of the importance of public service and civic duty. That is my dad, who served in the Army and died when he was 45.”